


‘You can do better than that.’

by Crowgirl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), past trauma, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-07-28 07:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: ‘Does wonders for the temper, having something to yell at. Makes it even better that they grow like mad when I do it.’





	1. Chapter 1

Aziraphale never really watches Crowley with his plants until they’ve moved out of London. He knows Crowley _has_ plants, of course, but that’s about it. Since one of the things that draws Crowley to the cottage is the overgrown wilderness of a garden, though, it becomes impossible not to watch him. 

‘You are all _terribly disappointing.’_

Crowley’s voice drifts in through the half-open window one morning while Aziraphale is unpacking dishes and he pauses, a soup tureen in one hand. 

‘Are you even _trying?_ Because I don’t think you are, honestly.’ 

There’s a sound Aziraphale can’t identify, then a sort of hollow thud, and Crowley’s voice picks up again. ‘Look at what you’ve got to work with here. Perfect soil, perfect sunlight, perfect water and this -- _this_ \-- is what you give me.’ He starts to say something else but moves down the garden as he does so and Aziraphale loses the words although he can still hear the sound of Crowley’s voice: sharp, hectoring, cold. 

Aziraphale looks thoughtfully at the soup tureen in his hand, then turns back to unpacking. Crowley and the garden will still be there but the kitchen is really a terrible mess.

* * *

The garden is a wide horseshoe around the cottage with the widest part at the back, lawn and borders and, a stone’s throw from the house, a tall privet hedge. Beyond the hedge are fields; they own those, too, technically, but the neighboring farmer has had a lease on them for so long no-one quite remembers when it started and Aziraphale and Crowley had decided an oat field was perfectly good scenery. It’s rather lovely now: almost at full height, nearly ready to be harvested -- and the farmer had promised Aziraphale some of the crop.

Two sets of French doors open from the cottage into the garden: one is from the sitting room, one from Aziraphale’s library. In good weather the outside doors stand open almost all the time. 

‘--useless -- utterly _useless!’_ Crowley’s voice breaks into what Aziraphale will never admit was a light doze and he blinks himself upright in his chair.

There’s a loud rustling sound as if something has been thrown into or against thick foliage and then Crowley’s voice is much closer, right outside the doors. ‘You’ve been warned. More than once, I’ve told you and you’ve seen what happens to the others and _this_ is the best you can do.’ 

Aziraphale puts his book aside, rises quietly, and makes his way over to the glass-paned doors. Crowley is kneeling at the edge of the border just to the left, glaring at a violet plant that appears to be trying to dig itself into the earth.

‘My dear boy, what are you doing?’

‘Hm? Oh, gardening.’ Crowley gives him a quick glance and a half-smile and then fixes his gaze back on the plant. He stabs a trowel into the earth just beyond the violet’s leaves and the entire plant trembles.

‘I always thought gardening involved more digging and less shouting,’ Aziraphale offers.

‘That’s if you’re _human,_ angel.’ Crowley gives the trowel a twist and lifts the violet out of the earth in one clump, earth falling away from the roots. ‘I can do much better than that.’

He holds up the inoffensive -- as far as Aziraphale can see -- violet by its leaves as one might hold up a particularly unpleasant dead mouse: at arm’s length and with a definite expression of disgust. He gives it a brisk shake -- moist earth showers down on his knees although Crowley doesn’t seem to notice -- and turns on one knee as if to show the violet to the rest of the garden. ‘See this? You all know what happens after _this.’_

‘...what happens after this?’ 

Crowley shoves himself to his feet and gives Aziraphale a grin. ‘Come and see.’ 

* * *

‘Did you honestly build a -- plant tormenting machine?’ Aziraphale asks, eyeing the -- whatever it is dubiously.

Crowley pats the gleaming thing proudly. ‘It’s my best yet.’ He flicks a switch and the maw of the thing starts to turn slowly, revealing itself to be two rollers, each with a series of long, sharp blades. The blades, each slightly curved, are set at angles to each other so no centimeter of anything caught between them could hope to escape a very thorough mincing. The end result is a compost heap that might win an award at Kew, but the entire thing is so -- unlike Crowley that Aziraphale can’t stop staring at it.

‘I warned you,’ Crowley says to the violet and makes to toss it in.

‘Oh, don’t!’ Aziraphale catches it in cupped hands mid-flight, rather like a cricket fielder.

Crowley shakes his head and holds out his hand. ‘C’mon, angel. We agreed. The garden is mine.’

‘Well, yes, but _really.’_ Aziraphale cradles the violet against his chest. ‘What did it ever do to you?’

‘It didn’t grow the way I told it to!’

‘Then we’ll see if it will grow the way _I_ tell it to,’ Aziraphale tells him and goes in search of a pot.

* * *

Aziraphale finds a rather lovely old green pot and the violet seems quite happy in a shadowy corner of his study. It even starts to bloom, putting out one, shy, pale flower and, after Aziraphale enthuses over the beauty of its work, abruptly bursting out in blossom. 

He rescues other plants, too: a tall lily that takes up a home near the French doors. It won’t live beyond the season, Crowley warns him, but it’s quite beautiful now it’s gotten over its shock. There’s also a scrap of moss -- Aziraphale isn’t sure why this one hadn’t come up to Crowley’s standard, but he thinks it’s doing very nicely in a wide, flat porcelain dish -- and what may one day, with some assiduous care, be a grand little ficus.

And he wouldn’t admit to shadowing Crowley in the garden, either, but he does make sure to take more strolls about the place than he used to and pause a few moments with the plants he’s noticed Crowley berating. Whether or not Crowley knows he does this, Aziraphale doesn’t much care. The garden is lovely and the plants deserve to know what a good job they’re doing. 

* * *

‘You’re doing _beautifully,’_ Aziraphale tells a peony bush, reaching out to brush some dust off one gleaming leaf. 

‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’ Crowley’s voice behind him is unexpected but Aziraphale’s more or less used to that now and doesn’t start. ‘What you’re up to.’

‘What I’m up to?’ Aziraphale repeats, giving the peony a last smile and straightening up. ‘What am I up to?’

‘Coming around after me. Being _nice_ to all my plants.’ Crowley puts enough venom in ‘nice’ to melt metal. 

‘I’m simply being honest with them,’ Aziraphale says, turning around. Crowley’s standing a few feet away, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders drawn tight together -- if Aziraphale didn’t know any better, he’d say Crowley was anticipating being _struck._ ‘Crowley, I--’

‘It won’t do any good, you know,’ Crowley interrupts, yanking one hand free and flinging it out in a grand gesture to encompass the entire garden. ‘They’ll just slack off again when you get bored.’

‘When I--’

_‘And then it will be back to business as usual!’_ Crowley bellows and this time Aziraphale does start.

‘My dear--’

‘But you enjoy yourself. Whatever. I don’t care.’ Crowley turns and is gone before Aziraphale can think to say anything else.

Aziraphale doesn’t follow him. Instead, he pulls one of the ironwork chairs they’d decided suited the old stone of the cottage into a shady corner and sits down. He looks around the garden, remembering Crowley’s delight at finding a few of the plants that had been there already (‘Old stuff this, angel. You can’t get this at the garden center.’), thinking of the hours he spent digging out every last weed (‘Dock’s the worst -- those roots end up in Dagon’s closet, I swear.’), the other hours he’d spent bringing in new things (‘That’s prime sunny shade, angel. You can’t just let it go to waste.’), and the hours he’d spent looking after it -- which is where Crowley’s voice in his memory stops being jubilant and starts being harsh.

* * *

Aziraphale doesn’t try to find Crowley until late that evening, the sun past setting. Crowley’s sitting on the half-mown, half-wild ground that slopes away from the garden towards the oat field. He has his back to the privet hedge, his knees hugged against his chest, and he’s looking up to where the first stars are pricking out in the dusky purple sky. 

Aziraphale sits down beside him, folds his hands, and waits. 

‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ Crowley says and his voice is rough, like he’s been shouting -- or crying. Aziraphale hates to think of Crowley slipping off somewhere to cry by himself but he also knows the demon hates being comforted. ‘It wasn’t what I _meant_ to do.’

‘No.’

Crowley nods, sniffs. ‘First plant I ever got was a cactus. Mean little thing. Spines two inches long. Don’t remember how I ended up with it.’

‘You bought it,’ Aziraphale says. ‘At a stall in Athens.’

‘...so I did. Well.’ Crowley sniffs again. ‘It fell on my foot.’ He grimaces. ‘Fucking thing -- spines damn near went straight through my boot. And...I -- was out of temper anyway and I yelled at it.’ He shakes his head and runs one hand back through his hair, raking it away from his face. ‘Stupid thing to do. Not like it _meant_ to fall on me.’

‘No.’ 

‘But I put the fear of -- well, _me_ into it and it wouldn’t stop growing. Two foot high it ended up. Had to give it away. Can’t exactly travel with a two foot cactus in my back pocket.’ Crowley takes a deep breath and, pursing his lips, lets it out in a slow sigh. Aziraphale is reminded of the brief period when the demon had taken up smoking in the ‘80s. ‘So next time I settled down somewhere--’

‘London. When I did.’

‘--I picked up another plant and -- tried the same thing.’ He tries a grin but it isn’t terribly convincing and slides away quickly. ‘Does wonders for the temper, having something to yell at. Makes it even better that they grow like mad when I do it.’

Crowley is silent for a long minute, gnawing thoughtfully on his lower lip. ‘It’s not -- it’s not like we got a bawling out. We didn’t actually get _told_ anything. No-one _said_ anything.’

‘No. I know.’ Aziraphale remembers quite clearly: everything had been silent. It wasn’t as though the firmament were normally _noisy_ in the human sense of noise but there was a constant feeling of activity, a sort of hum in the back of the ear, almost a tune. And that stopped. _Everything_ stopped.

‘You remember.’ 

‘Yes.’

‘Me?’

‘No.’

Crowley sniffs again. ‘No. I can’t imagine we hung around the same circles.’

‘Only because you were braver than I.’ 

‘Rubbish--’

_‘’tisn’t_ rubbish!’ Aziraphale exclaims, startling himself with the fervency with which he says it. ‘You had the courage of your convictions. I just -- hung around until I was booted out.’

‘You weren’t booted out, angel. You -- you selected early retirement.’

Aziraphale snorts. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly how Gabriel wrote it down in the record book.’

‘Bugger Gabriel,’ Crowley mutters.

‘No, thank you.’ 

That earns a quickly stifled laugh then Crowley looks out across the fields and sighs. ‘So I’ve been a nasty little tinpot god to my plants all these years. That’s what you’re telling me.’

‘Crowley--’

‘Oh,... leave it, angel.’ Crowley leans forward, resting his forehead on his knees and locking his hands together behind his head. ‘Just...leave it.’

‘You could do something different,’ Aziraphale says softly. 

‘I -- what?’ Crowley turns his head, resting his cheek on one kneecap and squinting up at Aziraphale.

‘You could do something different,’ Aziraphale repeats. ‘You don’t have to -- repeat what She did over and over. You -- can do better than that.’ 

Crowley stares at him for a minute then scrambles to his knees. ‘Show me your wings.’

‘Crowley--’

_‘Show me your wings!’_

Aziraphale shakes his head and lets the feathers expand from their usual resting place. He stretches the wing between them and tickles Crowley’s nose with a long, ivory primary. ‘See? All perfectly fine.’

Crowley reaches out as if to touch, then draws his hand back against his chest. 

‘Oh, come, now. You’ve touched them before.’ Aziraphale extends his wing all the way and slides it around Crowley’s shoulders, careful to make sure the feathers brush Crowley’s shirt so he can _feel_ Aziraphale touching him.

Crowley holds himself tense for a long minute, then it all goes out of him in one long exhalation and he sags against Aziraphale’s side. ‘You said--’

‘I didn’t say you could be better than...well. I didn’t _blaspheme._ All I said was that you could do better than what _was_ done.’

Crowley doesn’t say anything, so Aziraphale stays silent, too, slipping his arm around Crowley’s shoulders and tugging him into a slightly more comfortable position.

‘I can’t.’ Crowley says and stops abruptly. ‘I’m not.’

Aziraphale waits.

Crowley sighs, turning to press his face against Aziraphale’s shirt. ‘How can you be _nice_ to a peony, anyway?’ he mumbles.

‘I tell it it’s doing a beautiful job being what it is,’ Aziraphale says, sliding his fingers carefully through the tangles of Crowley's hair and Crowley _hmph_s into his shoulder. 

‘Well, when everything gets greenfly or gall or powdery mildew or whatever,’ Crowley says, a little indistinctly. ‘Don’t blame me.’ 

‘Never, dear. Never.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Love isn’t _nice,_ per se.’

‘Crowley?’ Aziraphale drops the stack of library books on the front hall table with a sigh of relief and knocks the front door shut with his heel. ‘I got some of those buns you like -- oh, and the shop had your tea. Put aside a box for you and everything.’ 

There’s no answer although Crowley is clearly home because the Bentley is still in the drive, neatly covered, and Crowley wouldn’t have gone out without saying---

Aziraphale hurries through the house to the French doors that open on the garden. It’s not as though he seriously thinks Dagon has shown up after all this time -- or, worse, Michael -- but there’s just enough of a possibility that--

There are unmistakable sounds of occupation from the potting shed down against the hedge and Aziraphale relaxes immediately. He makes tea before he goes out; bringing Crowley a treat is always a good way to avert his annoyance at being interrupted.

The shed door is propped open and Aziraphale pauses just outside because he can hear Crowley talking.

‘...trying your best. I suppose,’ Crowley says, in the tone which suggests he doesn’t believe what he’s saying. There’s a clinking noise and a sigh. ‘How the hell does he do it.’

‘Brought you some tea, my dear,’ Aziraphale says brightly, stepping in through the door with the air of someone who has not been eavesdropping at all.

Crowley starts and looks guilty for a minute; he’s standing over half a dozen pots of rooted geranium slips -- and Aziraphale’s violet. Aziraphale had noticed it missing but let it go, suspecting it was being used as a kind of test case. 

Crowley moves as if to block the plants from Aziraphale’s view, then sighs and makes a theatrical gesture of welcome.

‘Thank you.’ Aziraphale hands over a mug and considers the plants. The violet is doing beautifully -- it really hadn’t looked back since being rescued from untimely mulching. The geraniums have a slightly frozen air about them; like a room full of people who have been discussing an absent person just as the absent person walks in. 

‘I don’t know how you do this,’ Crowley says bluntly, downing half the tea and setting the mug aside. 

‘On the contrary, dear, you make excellent tea.’ Aziraphale leans forward to brush a bit of dust off a tiny geranium leaf. 

‘You know what I mean, angel.’ 

Aziraphale takes a sip of tea and considers the geranium before him. There are six plants, neatly arranged in a half-circle around the violet. The rest of the bench has been roughly cleared off but there are still stray leaves, fragments of branches, and smears of potting soil as well as Crowley’s favorite pair of shears and trowel. 

Crowley picks up his tea again and turns his back on the plants with a half-stifled grumble. ‘I don’t think it’s for me, angel, honestly.’

‘Hm?’

Crowley rolls his eyes. ‘Being nice to things.’

Aziraphale regards the little plant classroom for another moment, frowning thoughtfully. ‘Not a terribly helpful word, really, is it?’

‘Things?’

Aziraphale turns his back on the plants and leans back on the bench beside Crowley. ‘I was thinking more of nice. It isn’t niceness you need to express.’

‘You said--’

Aziraphale braces himself slightly as he says, ‘Love isn’t _nice,_ per se.’ Crowley goes silent and still and Aziraphale forges on with a silent prayer that he’s even close to doing the right thing. ‘You said--’

‘I know what I said, Aziraphale.’

‘Well, then.’

‘I can’t love anything,’ Crowley says tightly and Aziraphale can see where his knuckles have gone white clutching the thick ceramic of the mug.

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly forward so he can see Crowley’s face. ‘Is that so.’ 

Crowley flushes and looks away. ‘’m not _supposed--’_

‘And I’m not _supposed_ to be able to suck your cock and yet I seem to manage it.’ 

‘Angel!’

‘Well! If you’re going to say ridiculous things, I don’t see why I can’t.’ Aziraphale takes another sip of tea and adds, ‘That always seemed like a bit of an -- after-thought to me, in any case. And not a terribly wise one. Self-evidently wrong.’ 

‘No, you do suck cock quite well.’

‘Thank you, dear, but I was talking about demons and love. Wasn’t that the whole problem to start with? Too much love in the wrong direction.’ Aziraphale makes a slight movement of discomfort; talking about this is rather like forcing on clothes that don’t fit well. ‘Or something of the sort.’ 

‘Aziraphale...’

‘Well, wasn’t it? It wasn’t that your lot were incapable of loving; they just -- refused to be instructed as to the proper object.’ Aziraphale glances sideways at Crowley and catches the golden eyes wide, watching him as though he’d just suddenly sprung up through the floor of the shed, before Crowley blinks and fixes his gaze out the windows again.

‘Yeah. I mean. I suppose. You could. Look at it like that. If you wanted.’ 

Aziraphale drinks the last of his tea and pushes himself away from the bench. ‘In any case, leave them to themselves for awhile and come help me -- I found a new cookbook for us to try.’

* * *

The rest of the week goes by without so much as a mention of geraniums or love but Aziraphale notices Crowley heading out to the shed regularly every afternoon, shoulders set, with the air of a demon determined to conquer or know the reason why. 

He does give into temptation once on the third evening and takes a quick peek in the door of the shed while strolling around the lawn waiting for Crowley to finish whatever he’s doing so they can go to dinner. The light is bad and the clouds are rolling up but certainly nothing looks _worse_ than it had. 

* * *

Aziraphale had honestly nearly forgotten all about the geraniums when he makes a nest out of two of the wrought iron chairs, his favorite cushion, and a lovely plushy woollen blanket on a particularly nice afternoon and takes his book out there to doze over it rather than in his armchair. He isn’t sure what wakes him except he suddenly is awake and his ears are ringing slightly as if something very loud had happened very close but without waking him. 

He closes his book and gets up and the feeling doesn’t fade. It’s a tingle over his skin, rather like the feeling he gets during a strong thunderstorm or, once, a bad blizzard. The afternoon has faded rapidly to dusk and there’s a light on in the potting shed.

‘...very lovely.’

Aziraphale stops, several feet away from the door, and listens. 

‘Such a beautiful color,’ Crowley says, conversationally, the same tone he likes to use to make shocking suggestions in Aziraphale’s ear when they’re in public. ‘I really didn’t think you’d come out this well after the cuttings got neglected but just look at you.’

There’s a rustling noise and a slow trickle of water -- then silence. Aziraphale takes the risk of edging slightly closer so he can just see in through the edge of the window. Crowley is standing at the bench, hands planted on either side of a single potted geranium, looking down at it as though it contains the answer to some mystery. As Aziraphale watches, he lets out a slow breath and lifts one hand, touching a leaf with a fingertip. 

‘He’s going to be so disappointed in me if I can’t do this,’ Crowley tells the plant. ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever actually disappointed him before.’

He’s silent for a long minute, looking down at the plant, and finally sighs and shakes his head. Whatever he says next is too soft for Aziraphale to hear except that it begins with ‘please.’

Aziraphale retreats back into the house and tidies until his hands stop shaking. That night, he’s extra-sure to curl himself around Crowley in their wide bed, making sure every possible inch of their skin touches. 

* * *

Aziraphale watches himself carefully over the next few days, equally careful to make sure the words ‘love’ and ‘plant’ do not come up unexpectedly. It makes him feel rather as if he’s walking on on a fragile floor -- who knew the garden had been such a common subject of conversation between them? -- but the last thing he wants is for Crowley to feel under observation. 

Three days later, while they’re having tea in Aziraphale’s study, Crowley puts down his cup and says, ‘You heard me, didn’t you. The other day.’

Aziraphale freezes, then winces. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘No, of course not.’ Crowley stares out the window for a moment, then heaves a gusty sigh and rubs his hands through his hair until it’s nearly standing out around his head. ‘I just -- I don’t -- I don’t know how you _do_ it, angel. I’ve tried and -- I just feel idiotic. Standing there telling the plants they look _nice_ or -- or whatever. I can hear them laughing at me!’

Aziraphale puts down his cup carefully and follows Crowley’s gaze out the window into the garden. ‘They certainly don’t seem to have taken a turn for the worse.’

Crowley sighs again and waves a dismissive hand. ‘They’re just confused.’ 

Aziraphale goes to the window, takes a long survey of the garden, then comes back and kneels in front of Crowley’s chair, balancing himself on the demon’s knees. Crowley shifts uncomfortably and reaches down. ‘C’mon, angel, don’t--’

‘This entire garden exists because _you_ wanted it to,’ Aziraphale says and Crowley’s hands fall back into his lap. ‘I wouldn’t have known the first thing to do but you did.’

Crowley sags slightly and bites his lower lip hard enough to leave white dents around his teeth. _‘You_ can do it.’

Aziraphale catches up both of Crowley’s hands and kisses his knuckles. ‘My dear. I’ve done nothing but love things -- loudly and awkwardly sometimes but to the best of my ability -- for thousands of years. We had to come up with an entire Arrangement in order for you to be able to express a passing fondness for the odd thing every now and then over the course of _centuries.’_

Crowley seems caught between frowning and blushing as bright as his hair. ‘I -- it -- you’ve cursed things!’

Aziraphale nods. ‘And enjoyed it mightily from time to time. My point is that perhaps a week isn’t quite a long enough trial before declaring yourself a lost cause.’

* * *

‘Crowley?’ This time there are no library books, just Aziraphale himself shivering into the front hall and gladly closing the door against the chill autumn evening. He’d been in hopes that Crowley would have lit a fire, perhaps even started dinner or made a pot of tea, but the house is dim and quiet -- quiet enough that he can hear the soft tap of rain against the windows as he walks down the hall. He’s glad he kept his coat on when he sees the light in the potting shed and trots quickly across the intervening grass. 

‘...going to look so lovely when I bring you inside,’ he hears and Aziraphale stops, turning up his collar and hunching his shoulders against the rain. ‘I’ve got the perfect corner for you -- right next to a chair that’s just your color.’ Aziraphale sidles a step or two to the side and peers through the window.

Inside looks glowingly warm compared with the dusk outside; a tiny heater is running in one corner and the window is starting to show signs of condensation at the top. Crowley is fussing with the soil around a beautiful little Christmas rose. 

He evidently gets it set to his liking, gives the stem a last stroke, and turns away. ‘Now, you...’ Aziraphale hears him say before he steps away from the window and his voice is lost. He comes back almost immediately, though, another pot in his hands. This one contains a well-sized but clearly unhappy rosemary plant and Crowley puts it down on the bench beside the rose. ‘You -- have not been doing your best.’

Aziraphale starts running over in his mind all the ways Crowley would look for signs of disappointment in him so he can show none of them. He isn’t disappointed truly, just -- a little sad for Crowley.

Crowley shakes his head and reaches out to rub a rosemary leaf between his fingers then sniffs his fingertips thoughtfully. ‘Not enough water? Too much? I’ve never been very good with herbs, to be honest, so I’m sorry if I got it wrong.’ He squats down, bouncing slightly on his heels, and eyes the plant. ‘You are going to be a gift, you know, if that helps. Decorative. Not like we’re going to eat you or anything.’ The plant, even to Aziraphale’s uneducated eye, perks. ‘I read somewhere about rosemary trees being traditional in Italy and he’s always liked Italy so I thought why not give it a try.’ Crowley reaches out and gives the pot a quarter-turn. ‘So what do I do to get you looking a little happier, eh? Perhaps a bit more light? Drier air? Maybe you’ll do better in the house. Could make you an early gift.’ 

Crowley cups both hands around the pot and squints at the rosemary. Aziraphale lets his human vision go a tiny bit fuzzy, just enough that he can see-- 

‘Angel, you can come in if you’d like. I can hear it raining.’ 

Aziraphale straightens up with a guilty start and steps back around the corner in time to see Crowley knock the door open with his foot and grin up at him. ‘It’s comfier in here.’

‘Yes, much,’ Aziraphale agrees, stepping in and pulling the door shut. It’s warm -- his coat is immediately too much and he shrugs it off -- and just humid enough to feel pleasant on the skin. ‘I wondered...’

‘...how I was doing?’ Crowley pushes himself to his feet and leans back against the bench, reaching out to slip his fingers in Aziraphale’s waistcoat pockets and tug him closer. ‘Have you come to check my homework?’

‘I wondered why you weren’t in the house,’ Aziraphale allows, letting himself be arranged against Crowley’s front, Crowley’s hands sliding around his back under his jacket just where Aziraphale likes to have them. ‘It’s not exactly your kind of weather.’

Crowley jerks his chin at the heater. ‘New acquisition. Figured a decent starting point would be not -- shouting them into believing it’s good weather.’

Aziraphale blanches. ‘Good lord. Is that what you did?’

Crowley nods, a little sheepishly. ‘It didn’t always work, mind you. But. Uh. Yeah.’

‘Well, if that rose is anything to go by...’ Aziraphale takes one hand off Crowley’s shoulder and brings the pot into the light, turning it until the white blooms shine. ‘Your new treatment is working beautifully.’

Crowley flushes. ‘Yeah, well... The rosemary’s not falling for it.’ 

Aziraphale puts the rose back down and leans in to give Crowley a slow, careful kiss. ‘Time, dear. That’s all you need.’

**Author's Note:**

> Endless thanks to [Elizajane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane) and [Jaydeun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydeun) for their kindness in beta'ing and to [Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_up_a_sun) for sending me the tweet and to [Mazarin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b) for having the tweet in the first place.
> 
> There is a prize for anyone who spots the classic _Who_ reference -- but I'm afraid the prize is just me squeeing at you. So. Apportion your time wisely.


End file.
